I just thought of this 5 minutes ago, so bear with me, as it is not going to be well thought out, but please give input, or alternative ideas.

1) National debt currently sits in excess of 10 trillion dollars.

2) This means that your "share" sits at something like $30,000 a person. (give or take) I would argue however that based on income distribution throughout the country, the actual "per share" is somewhat different per person.

3) Given this, if a taxpayer was given an incentive to "pay their share", would they do it?

4) If offered the option to "pay off their share" of the debt in exchange for further tax breaks and other incentives, like double or triple the amount paid qualifies for a tax write-off that can be carried over year to year and spread out, would anyone take it?

For example if I paid $50,000 to pay off my share, I could then write $150,000 dollars off my tax returns whenever I wanted. In small increments, or one lump sum, and it never expired.

5) While obviously we need tax revenue to still run the country, we would need to stagger the years that people could qualify to do this.

6) I think that the lower tax rates as an incentive and the big tax write-offs are a good incentive to get people on board perhaps with this idea. Lower tax rates, over time do generate more revenue in a good economy, so if given time to implement the entire plan, I think the revenue boost would offset the small timeframe that might have a shortfall.

7) Of course this would require spending to be somewhat more controlled as well, but I feel that even if this plan only successfully dropped the debt 30-50% it would have been a huge success. Also, we could set a goal of simply shaving off a few trillion, as opposed to paying it all off, and I think we would have success.

Also, we should take into account the debt of other countries that we own, which could lower this figure a bit, and then attempt to tackle that figure.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." - Alexander Tyler 1787

Rob, the only real problem with your idea, is that Socialism says that if you have the means, its only "Fair" when you pay more than what is.

If you really want to pay down the debt, America needs a different kind of Change from what we are being promised:

Make our corporate tax rate the lowest in the world - its currently second highest - so business is encouraged to locate here, rather than re-locate elsewhere.

Lower the Capital Gains tax to encourage investment.

Either institute a Flat Tax on income, or, abolish the 16th and institute a Fair Tax. In either case, add an additional 1%, or 0.5% respectively, to the new Tax specifically for payment on the Debt.

Reign in Lawsuits and the Trial Lawyer extortion racket on business and industry through tort reform.

Remove the tax exempt status from churches and organizations who violate the Politically Neutral statute of their charter (Church of Trinity and ACORN come to mind) and eliminate all government funding and support from those organizations.

We can shave some real fat too:

Eliminate all Federal Scholarship and College Loan programs. College tuition will magically drop like a rock - like the housing or tech markets, higher education has been in a perpetual, and artificially inflated, market bubble for decades.

Institute a new drug policy, namely, all politicians and welfare recipients have to pass regular drug tests in order to get, or continue to receive, taxpayer benefits - Until such time as the War on Drugs comes to an end and these substances are made legal.

Cancel foreign aid to any countries that have not supported us in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Reduce our UN contributions to match the median contributions of all other member nations, OR, have our voting power in the UN based on our % of contribution to the whole (if we fund 60%, our one vote is worth 60% of all votes).

Make our corporate tax rate the lowest in the world - its currently second highest - so business is encouraged to locate here, rather than re-locate elsewhere.

Lower the Capital Gains tax to encourage investment.

Click to expand...

From my friends in the US that we deal with on a regular basis, they say there are so many ways to bring down the corporate tax burden they may as well not bother having one!!?? These guys retain a tax attorney (or some artful commercial magician) that basically moves their money here, there and everywhere, offsets just about all their liability until ultimately they end up almost claiming money back from the Government!!

It seems that the way corporate tax is handled and legislated is that those with the resources can almost abrogate all their liability for tax against their corporate activities because the whole system is a legal mess based upon byzantine codes, codiciles and statute.

If anything you need to increase your corporate tax rates so that someone actually pays them!!?? That or start again with a clean sheet and put in place laws that are not drawn up by or in favour of corporations so that they can get out of paying them!

I guess putting it simply, debt is accrued because income is less that out goings, so pay more money to your Government you stingy buggers

2)This means that your "share" sits at something like $30,000 a person. (give or take) I would argue however that based on income distribution throughout the country, the actual "per share" is somewhat different per person.

Lower tax rates, over time do generate more revenue in a good economy....

Click to expand...

Welll....that's what They say, anyhow.....another one o' those factoids (if repeated, often-enough) people start believing.

"The recent flood of revenue pouring into Treasury coffers—enough to push the federal budget to a record $93.94 billion surplus for the month of April—appears to have come mostly from the nation’s biggest earners, indicating that the controversial tax increase may indeed be taking from the rich. "The available data suggest the surge in tax collections has come from the taxpayers with high incomes, who were the only ones affected by the 1993 changes," says Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.

"The basic fact is that people looked at the 1993 budget agreement and said there’d be a recession, the deficit would go way up and that tax collections would go way down," says Mr. Summers. "What has happened is there has been a boom, the deficit has gone way down and tax collections have gone way up." — WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 22, 1997

Click to expand...

"Instead, the president explained, the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone."

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." - Alexander Tyler 1787

It seems that the way corporate tax is handled and legislated is that those with the resources can almost abrogate all their liability for tax against their corporate activities because the whole system is a legal mess based upon byzantine codes, codiciles and statute.

I am suggesting that in practical terms you cannot sell this plan if you ask someone making $25,000 a year to pay $30,000. It is just not realistic. It is more practical to ask them to pay something like $5,000. Otherwise you get no one on board with the plan.

To give someone making $1,000,000 a year the option to pay a higher amount to take a 2.5X tax write off makes more sense.

Not force them to do anything, because I do not agree with that, but given the option I think most people would be willing to "pay their share" persay to take a 150% return.

Welll....that's what They say, anyhow.....another one o' those factoids (if repeated, often-enough) people start believing.

I also hardly think you can compare the tech boom that Clinton was lucky enough to preside over to the current economy. In the tech boom you could have done just about anything and the economy was going to stay good. That is not going to happen today.

I can't comment on this. I have no idea what you're trying to say. Maybe it's a punctuation (or, lack of) issue.

Click to expand...

What it says is that the increased revenue from the tax cuts can make up for any budget shortfall (since we all know the budget will likely not be cut) coming from the write offs people will get.

I think you can extend this offer to companies as well, who would most likely be in big support of getting 150% return on their investment.

By staggering the brackets over a few years, you will not get a massive influx of everyone writing off all their taxes the same year, thus resulting in massive borrowing.

How about we just go back to basics? Eliminate all spending on all programs, offices, agencies, and anything else that isn't specifically listed in the constitution??

Click to expand...

I agree with the notion here, I think the biggest issue that has caused all the problems in the first place, and one that is allowed in the Constitution.
Article 1 Sec. 8 allows Congress, the ability to borrow on the credit of the United States. Now there are times when I think that is necessary. But what we have come to experience in the last 8 years is obviously unsustainable. And despite whoever becomes President, this year, or even in 4-8 years are going to put any signifigant efforts into this, until it becomes another crisis. Then and probably just like now, it will be a band-aid, and trying to fix one problem often comes a bunch that were unanticipated.

I dont think there is a good answer to this. Except a fundamental change to the way DC works, and specifically the sources of revenue, and the available expenditures annually through the budget process.
In the short-medium term, it might be interesting to have Congress think about how most cities change thier mill rates annually to cover thier budget that year. A flucuating flat income would hold thier feet to the fire no doubt. Having to justify a tenth of a percentage here and there would shake things up a bit.

The national debt, also known as the United States public debt. While the United States national debt is the world's largest in absolute size, a more convenient measure is that of its size relative to the nation's Gross Demand Product.

I agree with the notion here, I think the biggest issue that has caused all the problems in the first place, and one that is allowed in the Constitution.
Article 1 Sec. 8 allows Congress, the ability to borrow on the credit of the United States. Now there are times when I think that is necessary. But what we have come to experience in the last 8 years is obviously unsustainable. And despite whoever becomes President, this year, or even in 4-8 years are going to put any significant efforts into this, until it becomes another crisis. Then and probably just like now, it will be a band-aid, and trying to fix one problem often comes a bunch that were unanticipated.

I dont think there is a good answer to this. Except a fundamental change to the way DC works, and specifically the sources of revenue, and the available expenditures annually through the budget process.
In the short-medium term, it might be interesting to have Congress think about how most cities change their mill rates annually to cover their budget that year. A fluctuating flat income would hold their feet to the fire no doubt. Having to justify a tenth of a percentage here and there would shake things up a bit.

Click to expand...

Now that would shake things up. I hope I live long enough to see something like this come to pass.